Stormy weather pulls plug on Thursday night football

Four Grand Strand area football teams moved their games to Thursday night, but the weather had other plans as thunderstorms forced the games to be postponed until Friday. Myrtle Beach vs. West Florence was tied 7-7 in the first quarter, as was St. James vs. Carolina Forest, when a line of thunderstorms rolled onto the Grand Strand.

North Myrtle Beach traveled over the state border to face West Brunswick (NC) but barely got the game kicked off before the plug was pulled with a scoreless tie. The Chiefs and Trojans will try it again at 6 p.m. Monday.

Myrtle Beach was playing on local television and unveiling the $5.5 million renovations to Doug Shaw Stadium, but they wound up getting less than one hour of air time – and no much of it was positive. The Seahawks committed two turnover in the first 4 minutes, the latter resulting in a 42-yard scoop and score by the Knights’ Sherrod Simon.

But before the extra point could be kicked, the lights went out at Shaw Stadium and the first delay was not related to the weather. Myrtle Beach returned to make an impressive scoring drive that was capped by Luke Doty’s 16-yard touchdown pass to Da’Ron Finkley to tie the game at 7-all, but the game was halted shortly after for lightning in the area. The game will resume at 5 p.m. Friday.

Carolina Forest faced a similar fate after opening the game with a long scoring drive that was capped by Matt Beale’s 30-yard TD run for a quick 7-0 lead. But the Sharks answered back with a scoring drive of their own as Gage Flohr hit Ames Fowble for a 40-yard TD on a double pass trick play. The extra point made it 7-all as the storms put an end to the action for the night. The game will move to St. James’ field and is set to continue at 5 p.m. Friday.